


Psychological Breakdown Topped with Dressing in Aisle Nine

by speckledsolanaceae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grocery Store, M/M, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22666447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/pseuds/speckledsolanaceae
Summary: It’s the small things that break you, and the cute grocery store employee who puts you back together again.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 39
Kudos: 268





	Psychological Breakdown Topped with Dressing in Aisle Nine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yourobdtst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourobdtst/gifts).



> *glances at tags* is a grocery store _really_ an alternate universe?
> 
> I wrote this just for fun but also as a gift for Becca. I suggested I might add more to the first scene I wrote for her to make it an actual fic rather than just a snapshot _months_ ago. I have finally done it! 
> 
> I feel like I could add so much more to this. Maybe I'll add another chapter someday ♡ For now, please enjoy this brief jaunt!

In light of the amount of stress Yuta has gone through, he thinks he reacts quite realistically to what happens in aisle nine of the employee-owned local grocery.

When he drops the bottle of dressing, and it shatters on the floor, and it splatters his favorite jeans, and everyone stares, he, just like a normal person, drops into a crouch and cries.

Because. You know. It’s the small things that break you.

The other customers skirt around him like ants avoiding a dead leaf. He presses his palms to his eyes and tries to make sense of all the shit that’s happened to him—he just comes out the other side more delirious and even more hysterical.

 _Psychological breakdown topped with dressing in aisle nine,_ Yuta thinks, and literally cannot manage to pull himself together for the entire two and a quarter minutes he ends up sobbing in a public space. He’s surrounded by bottled things, so you’d think he’d be inspired to bottle his emotions but no.

No, he’ll be an untethered disaster instead.

The hand on his shoulder startles him and he almost slips in the glittering glass and sugared oil at his feet. He would have if he hadn’t shot out a grip to hold onto the shelves. He almost dislodges a jar of minced garlic.

When he looks up, he swears he sees the most gorgeous fucking person he’s ever witnessed, though the concern and confusion in their expression is a shame. “Sir,” they say, “this is a grocery store.”

Yuta’s eyes drop to the nametag pinned to their black apron. _Taeyong_ , it says. _A worker_ , it implies. Here to clean up aisle nine.

“Right,” Yuta says, and his voice sounds horrible. “I forgot.”

(He hadn’t.)

Taeyong looks uncomfortable, but his eyes are so big still with this overwhelming empathy that Yuta has to nearly punch himself to stop the tears from dripping afresh. 

“There’s an employee room,” says Taeyong. “It’ll be better to be there if you need a moment.” 

Yuta realizes belatedly (and uncharacteristically so) that Taeyong still hasn’t removed his hand from his shoulder. It’s warm. Yuta’s throat is tight.

“Okay.”

“I’ll take you there?” says Taeyong, and puts out another hand to hover over Yuta’s stomach as he stands—just to make sure he doesn’t slip. Which is perfect. And overwhelming. “And I’ll come back after cleaning?”

“I’m so sorry—” Yuta says, but it’s more of a croak. This employee seems precious and he’s making him clean up an organic oil spill. Humiliation is added to his strain and distress.

“Don’t be,” Taeyong says, and only then removes his hand as they step out of the disaster zone.

He promises, on the way, that it’ll be a quick cleanup and not to worry, and gosh, it was a pretty cheap bottle, so that makes it even more okay. “It won’t pinch your wallet,” says Taeyong kindly, and he seems determined to be bright and warm at Yuta’s side.

Yuta feels miserable in a way, and exactly not in a lot of other ways.

The employee room is modest par his expectations, but Taeyong takes a moment to fish out a fresh box of tissues out of one of the cabinets. “Get the tears out if you need to. No one has break for a while, so you’ll be okay in here.” Taeyong smiles, eyes dark and sweet, and Yuta melts into something indistinct and messy as he drops into a chair and watches Taeyong leave. “I’ll be back in a few. Don’t move, okay?”

“Okay,” Yuta says to the door, closed behind Taeyong’s back, and grips the thin cardboard of the tissue box.

He exists in a muddled daze for a moment before the ache gets stronger and he sees the oil marks on his jeans and the tears swell from somewhere in his chest that’s bigger and more awful than it ought to be. Yuta tilts his head forward and lets the tears slip.

There are too many things to list, even in his head, but he knows he’s tired and he knows he’s needed a good cry for almost a month of pushing. If it so happens in aisle nine and the employee break room, such was fitting.

He thumbs away his own tears and tries to keep himself silent, focusing on the time getting shorter until Taeyong showed up again rather than anything else.

When the door opens again, it’s so quiet, and Taeyong crouches at Yuta’s feet with a cafe cup nestled in both of his hands. “It’s hot chocolate from the little cafe we have,” Taeyong says. “It’s got soy. I wasn’t sure if you were lactose intolerant. I should have asked.”

Whatever Yuta had been doing before, it hadn’t been crying. _This_ was crying. He fucking bawls at this tiny gesture, and Taeyong makes a startled noise Yuta almost can’t hear over his own tears.

“Oh my god,” Taeyong says, quietly and so so kindly. “Can I touch you? It’ll just be a hug.”

Yuta nods through the tears, and the hug he is given is bony and awkward with their positions, but warm. Taeyong smells like vanilla.

Speaking from the perspective of a muddled mind, Yuta loves this employee and will die for him, at this rate, if necessary. “Thank you,” he says instead, all snotty and funny around the tightness in his throat. Telling a stranger he loves them at first cry and would die for them seems wildly inappropriate, but he hopes a thank you is a decent compromise in the absence of more blatant honesty.

“You’re so welcome, oh my god,” says Taeyong. “Do you need me to stay? My shift ends in an hour—maybe that’s too long.”

“I would die for you,” Yuta weeps into Taeyong’s now-damp shoulder because honesty is the best policy and Yuta can’t think worth a damn.

Taeyong hiccups a cute sound, then gives the tiniest laugh before squeezing Yuta’s shoulders in their hug. “You’ll wait an hour, then?”

Yuta nods against the cloth of Taeyong’s white shirt and gets to hear Taeyong’s little laugh again.

“Drink what I got for you, okay?” Taeyong says, voice so warm, and Yuta holds him a little tighter before letting go. “I’ll be back before you know it, then you can tell me everything.”

Yuta reaches for the warm cup that Taeyong had placed on the table and presses the plastic lid to his lips. He nods against it, and Taeyong beams at him.

The hot chocolate has a hint of peppermint.

* * *

“I’m Taeyong,” he says when he’s gathered his bag and has beckoned Yuta back out into the wide world.

“I know,” Yuta says. “Your nametag—”

Taeyong’s big eyes widen and he looks down at his chest like it may still be there. It’s not, but he almost runs into a pyramid of nilla wafers.

“—earlier,” Yuta clarifies, biting his lip.

“Right,” Taeyong exhales. “Right. Earlier.”

“Yuta,” he offers as introduction, and gives his hand over, curious if Taeyong’s one of those people who has a limp shake or a firm one.

He’s neither. Apparently he’s someone who can’t focus on more than one thing at a time, because he knocks into the aisle shelf with a squeak, then manhandles Yuta’s hand into a shake that’s knobby and awkward.

“Are you—”

“I’m not clumsy,” Taeyong gasps, releasing his hand and promptly wiping it down his shirtfront like he was firmly, existentially aware that his hands had been sweaty. “I’m just distracted.”

Yuta feels better about being a wreck—in good company, apparently, except Taeyong is infinitely cuter about being distracted and clumsy (yes, _clumsy_ because only clumsy people almost ran into some nilla wafers then straight into a shelf both in the span of five seconds). At the same time, though, he worries. He was a mess for Taeyong to clean up, and for some reason he is now encroaching still. _Off_ Taeyong’s clock, even.

“Do you have something going on?” Yuta tries, wanting to know exactly how much space he’s taking up in Taeyong’s time. They cross through the checkout area, beeps galore following them as someone goes through the personal booth at record speed. “I don’t want to get in the way.” He doesn’t know what to do—Taeyong had offered, more or less, but Yuta will gladly wriggle out of his skin and into the nearest dark abyss if he overstepped.

“No, no,” Taeyong says, waving his hands in front of himself, and he looks a little pink as he avoids the pots of bouquets at the entrance. “I just—you—”

“Me?”

“When you’re not crying—” Yuta feels embarrassed. “—you’re just really pretty.”

It takes a second.

Yuta _laughs._ He bends at the waist, stops just outside the sliding doors, and laughs so hard and so abruptly that it launches him right into a coughing fit.

“Oh god, oh god I’m so sorry. That was super inappropriate. I’m—I just didn’t realize. I feel so dumb oh my god,” Taeyong babbles, fingers spinning and fluttering around him like the frenzy will solve something.

Yuta looks up and wheezes. Can’t help smiling at the funny color of pink in Taeyong’s ears. “Taeyong, I’m super gay. I’ll just tell you right now. You can’t just say something like that or I’ll fall in love with you.” He doesn’t care that his mouth is faster than his brain in that moment, and when his brain catches up, he finds he _still_ doesn’t care _._ He’s already got a fat crush on this cute, empathetic grocery-store worker. If he’s consenting, he’ll woo him right this second.

Taeyong turns the color of a barely-ripe peach. “Oh!” he says. “That’s—that’s cool, I guess. Crazy coincidence. Wow. Haha.” He turns and walks straight across the crosswalk without prelude, and if the car had been driving any faster, he would have gotten hit.

 _“Taeyong,”_ Yuta laughs, and his heart is gnashing at his ribcage because he just came out to a stranger and got the reply “crazy coincidence.” Does that mean something? Please let it mean something. “Please be careful!” he calls, and waits until the car has passed for him to run after the person who stole his heart without getting detected by the damn security stanchions. “What does that mean?” Yuta asks, only just resisting the urge to grab Taeyong’s wrist and make him stop walking so fast.

He’s cute in his thick-rimmed glasses, and there’s a scar near his eye that Yuta has only noticed now. Yuta’s vision is clear, he’s no longer crying, apparently he’s a lot prettier, and he is currently witnessing a flaw of Taeyong’s that makes him like him infinitely more.

He decides to hold his wrist anyway as Taeyong slows. A woman pushes a cart by, and one of the wheels is broken, spinning madly in squeaky soprano. “Coincidence?” Yuta presses, enjoys the thin warmth of Taeyong’s skin under his fingertips.

“I’m bi,” says Taeyong, stopping just short of a decorative parking lot tree. He brings his free hand up to gnaw on a hangnail as his eyes turn doe-like and anxious. Another flaw. 

Precious.

“Go out with me,” Yuta says. No flourish, no nothing. “I don’t know you, but please go out with me.” Taeyong’s eyes go impossibly wider, and Yuta’s just trying to cling to fate—if that’s what this is. “My name is Nakamoto Yuta. I’m an accountant and I need to quit my job. I really love mountain climbing and my family. I think I’m really super gay for this cute grocery worker who hasn’t judged me yet for having a public breakdown. Please go out with me.”

Taeyong’s whole face scrunches, and he smiles. “You said that three times.”

“I also said,” Yuta says, smiling back, giddy, feeling the adrenaline of the leap and the massive amount of serotonin Taeyong shot him with by so far not saying no (for smiling and letting him hold his wrist), “that I would die for you.”

“You did.” Taeyong laughs, and it’s dorky and nervous and sweet. “You’re moving very fast.”

Yuta concedes to this with a tilt of his head. “My life’s been incredibly shitty lately,” he admits, then takes a bold, smile-brimmed breath, “so you can imagine my relief when I saw you.”

Taeyong groans, pulls away just slightly in order to slump into the air like it’s a lounge for Bad Pickup-line Recovery. “You can’t do that. It’s _funny_ and I’m afraid you’re psychotic.” He sighs and smiles as Yuta bites down on a laugh. _“One_ date and I’m looking you up on social media.”

“A second if I’m lucky?” Yuta asks, and he wonders if any of the passersby have noticed them.

 _“So_ many if you’re lucky. And we’re not leaving this area. I’m not getting in a car with you,” Taeyong warns.

“That’s very fair,” Yuta says. “What if I consensually made out with you in the backseat? That’s scandalous.”

Taeyong squeaks, then laughs, twisting his wrist to take Yuta’s hand. His heart soars. “Why are you so excited? Do you always have these kinds of highs after your lows?”

“I don’t usually have lows like that,” Yuta says, and honestly, his mind and heart are running so wild right now that he’s just trying to keep his innards _inside his body._ “I’m really doing something off-the-walls, here. This is the most spontaneous I’ve been since uni.”

“A degree?” Taeyong asks.

“Yes. Debt, mostly,” Yuta says, heart still skidding around like a puppy on ice.

“How sexy of you,” Taeyong says, voice tight through his smile. His eyes are lit up like a sunrise, and he’s so much closer than Yuta had realized. He stands, transfixed, a million things sprinting around in his head. _Don’t fuck with my heart like that. I may kiss you. I’m so fucking attracted to you. Who created you? How do you like your breakfast? Don’t call me sexy I’ll cry._

“There’s a food place nearby, probably,” Yuta says, getting to the part where he’s so high on adrenaline and excitement that he’s going numb. “It might be good.”

“It’s okay. Pricey,” says Taeyong, tilting his face up like he’s daring Yuta to kiss him in the middle of a parking lot by a scraggly tree. “And I’m poor.”

“I’m an accountant,” Yuta says breathlessly.

Taeyong searches his eyes, hand warm in his, a smile still touching his lips. Yuta thinks he glows, kind of, like the reflection of the moon on water. “I give you permission to make out with me in the backseat of your car after you buy lunch.”

Yuta lets out the breath he’s been holding. Really tries not to scream in the midst of it. “Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> *thinking noises intensify* really might revisit this sometime and add that good old fashioned kissing.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)  
> [curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)  
> 


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